HDHomerun Prime Owners Thread - Page 16

Here's an interesting thread on recording to a network share that is not an iSCSI target.

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/....php?f=5&t=761

You beat me to it.

This works:
1. Delete Users\\Public\\Recorded TV. (You may need elevated privileges.).
2. Create a symlink to the destination network share, using Users\\Public\\Recorded TV as the target: mklink /d "Recorded TV" \\\\server\\share.
3. If necessary, create matching user accounts on both PCs.
4. Reassign the the Windows Media Center Receiver Service to log on to this account, rather than Network Service.

This just redirects the default recording directory. WMC doesn't know its not local.

I think I'm just going to keep it simple and add a drive to my computer. I have 3 unused slots as it is anyway. As I have mentioned before I was also looking at the Ceton card. I notice alot of them get an error with their subscription. Has anyone run into that with the HDHR Prime? I really need something that is almost fool proof for the wife and kids without a ton of errors. I want to get rid of this $28 a month whole house DVR. Overall though going through the threads, this appears more stable than the Ceton card. Has anyone used the Ceton and found that the HDHR Prime has fewer errors?

Foolproof? In Windows? Surely you jest!

Seriously, though, the Prime has been very stable here and 7MC is a pretty good DVR. (Before the Prime, I never had any use for it at all--just used XBMC.)

05/23-24/12

Don't miss this great deal on the SiliconDust HDHR3-CC HDHomeRun Prime CableCARD 3-Tuner Network TV Tuner - $129.99 + $5 shipping
www.woot.com/

Well I'll be go dammed. I just ordered at $150. So I ordered another.

Outstanding price, get it while you can.

Did a quick search on this thread and saw a couple of people mention using iPads. Would love to trade notes on what you guys are using to do that. I have a central computer running WMC 7, and a few XBox 360's. I also have iPhones, iPads, and Apple TV2's (and an ATV3). The XBox 360 as extender works great - can use the guide and watch live TV.

For the iPhone/iPad, I've experimented with the following:
1) RemotePotato app. Can control the guide, see the metadata on the shows you've recorded, and stream them, including shows which are still recording. Can't do live TV, but you can record something new and start streaming it about 5 mins later, so that's pseudo-live. My problems with it, though, are that it's buggy and the video quality is sub-par (at the higher bitrates, it stutters and still doesn't look as good as AirVideo, and at the lower bitrates it just looks awful all around).

2) AirVideo app. No guide, live TV, or metadata info, but you can point the desktop app to the Recorded TV folder, view the files on your iPhone and play them with very high quality video. You can Airplay them to an ATV2/3, but on a larger screen you may notice video degradation and the framerate can feel less than smooth.

3) MC-TVConverter. This is an app that runs on your computer and can convert copy-freely shows to MP4. The app is more of a shell to a bunch of other apps (including Handbrake). Resulting video quality is the best, and you can end up with small files that you can save forever and take with you on-the-go. It can be configured to watch the Recorded TV folder and start transcoding a show as soon as its done recording, or it can run at a set time (e.g., in the middle of the night) to convert things. You can't do live TV, of course. With a fast computer, a 1/2 hour show, could be transcoded in 2x speed, so it could be ready to watch 15-30 minutes after the live show has finished.

Most of the above I've experimented with but not had any major need for. AirVideo and Remote Potato support over-the-internet streaming as well, but I'm picky about quality and suspect that I wouldn't be satisfied with Remote Potato's PQ, given my experience with its PQ when streaming inside my house.

I'd love for Apple to release a next-gen AirportExtreme/TimeCapsule that ran iOS and had a DVR server that could interface with the PRIME and do on-the-fly MP4 conversion (and record shows in that format), so as to support live TV viewing on any iOS device, including support for the ATV2/3, of course. Then I could ditch the XBox 360's and have the more invisible ATV3 as my main set top box. But I suspect that Apple has more interest in growing their iTunes pay-per-show model.

Any other interesting solutions for streaming live TV to an iPhone/iPad/ATV I may have missed?

Just got my HDHR Prime set up today, well almost. TV works great through QuickTV but when I try to use WMC I get a Video Error: File needed to display video are not installed or are not working correctly. It also says my computer is not digital cable ready.

Any ideas? I'm using LAV Codecs.

Did you run the "digital cable adviser" in WMC?
Go to the Silicondust support forum...They have a install FAQ section that will help you out.

I didn't at the time of the post but I ran it not too long after and I'm getting the same issues, I'm installing Shark007 codec pack right now and see if that fixes the problem

What version of windows are you using?

Windows 7 x64

EDIT: Well installing Shark007 codecs didn't work, I even lost my ability to use QuickTV, so I went ahead and restored my system to prior to uninstalling LAV filters and all of a sudden everything works.

What player are you using? MPC-HC through MB or WMC (could be through MB or native).

Do you need HD Audio? Then you probably want LAV.

What has happened is that you've broken the MS Media Foundation. A couple things to check..

Make sure that in Control Panel > Sound you have Windows set for STEREO playback. One drawback to this is if you want to play a movie that is, say, 5.1 PCM you don't get all channels but PCM is rare now.. older BRD's it wasn't rare.

Try using MPC-HC with alternate filters (LAV). This is in assassin's guides under "Beta" and also in the MPC-PC Sticky thread. Note that with an iGPU you can still use MadVR in it's basic form. I'm now using it to switch frame rates to 24p from 60i for BRD playback.

If this doesn't work, uninstall LAV and use Shark007 to set up LAV. The set-up of this is in assassin's free guide as well as on Shark007's page.

That did the trick, for a while it was working fine but then it died again on me, tried that and everything is playing fine. Thank you!

I eventually plan on getting into MadVR, right now I can't get my video calibration right between my HTPC with HD3000 Graphics --> Denon 1712 AVR --> Samsung LN52A750 so that will probably be part of my next step

My prime came yesterday!!

I have two drops at my house. One goes directly to a box on the wall and right into the cable modem in our home office. The other goes into the back of the house and through an unknown number of splitters (3, maybe?) to the family room where the entertainment center is.

There's gig ethernet at both locations. My concern is signal strength at the entertainment center but this is where I'd prefer to put the TA and the HDHR Prime. I want to have this set up and ready wen the tech arrives. How can I determine the signal strength at that location and what is an acceptable dB level?

I installed it last week.
For cablevision it's self install, not sure about your provider.
I definitely don't want to pay for tech visit another $40.


HDHR Prime has a utility to show signal level, but cablecard need to be activated, IMO.
Your cable box(es) should be able to show signal level on diagnostic pages as well.

>acceptable dB level
Can't answer this (in dB).
HDHR Prime shows in percentage
Signal strength and quality and Symbols quality.
Above 90% is green (i.e. good)
For me higher channels (around 50, where HBO is) have Signal strength ~85-88%, (yellow)

Guys,
Want to clarify a little something:

Setup:
HDHR Prime + 7MC.
W7 is sleeping (S3 or S5)
A recording is scheduled in 7MC.

What is responsible for HTPC wake up (few min ahead, I guess)?
7MC or HDHR Prime?
I have a feeling, it's the former, but got confused while reading this thread
Something about HDHR Prime firmware update fixed scheduled recording problem while HTPC is sleeping.
IMO, 7MC should be able to do it very same way windows update does - schedule PC wakeup from any sleep state to install MS updates.

They need to remove the signal trap (or so they say). At any rate, I got the service call fee waived by telling them that CableCARDs must be permitted to be self-installed and I shouldn't have to pay for maintenance on their side of the point of demarcation. Plus Umatter2charter on AVS helped with that too.

I have no current cable boxes as I'm coming over from Uverse TV. I do have a cable modem already so QAM is available. It is weak though so maybe there is a filter (signal trap) on my line.

I'll hook it up and install the software via internet and also update the f/w. What version is most stable right now?

After software install I can check the signal strength I guess.

How's the quality with those sub-90% signals on the premiums (and overall)?

How about channel changing speed? (Tuning Adaptor?)

Don't know. During HDHR Prime driver setup, it updated to the latest (most stable?) without asking me, AFAIR.


I think, you need activated CableCard.
ARAIR, I was not able to see even free channels, until I called Co.
It depends on Co, I guess.


85-88% are good enough. On weekends, I see lot's of mosquito noise on premium channels.
If I record during night time - it's perfect, but never had a change to check signal strength...


I don't have any channels required TA, Co didn't give me one.

Again, I'm a newbie in HDHR Prime and 7MC, looking for lots of info myself.

It does tune QAM per this thread, post #4 on Silicondust's forum.

Right.
And it depends on Co, as I said.
Cablevision in my area don't have a single unencrypted channel.
At least I was not able to find one in HDHR Prime config - all OTA channel s are shown as encrypted.
I'm sure, HDHR have to be able to decrypt channel to evaluate signal quality.
It should measuring packets loss or something

Charter has but a few. So this is a limitation of the service provider not the HDHR Prime, then.

I do recall reading cablevision site FAQ:

If you don't have subscription to any premium channels - you don't need CableCard.
But you need to register HDHR with Co still.
Not even sure now. I have read so much before I pulled a trigger, so it's quite messy now in my head.

Absolutely!

I didn't read a whole lot before I pulled the trigger. Figured I figure it all out after I got it which was a matter of waiting for the right price. I missed the April Woot deal and knew there'd be another price drop. I got a slickdeals notification last week and jumped w/in 10 minutes of the deal going live only to get another notification an hour later that it hit $135 so I ordered yet another one. Then I got notification from Woot that they were going to adjust the price for the first one by $20. Now I have two . I'm thinking of selling one of them because the price is back up to the $200 range now.

I bet, it'll be another deal around July 4th or before.
Although, SD-ers were betting, neweggs will match J&R deal + throw in free remote, but it didn't happen.

Yup. Need to decide on that in the next two weeks but the April deal didn't correspond to any holiday sowho knows. It might go on sale again tomorrow.. I might keep it and use tuner salad to get 3 more tuners but I'll have to pay $2/month for another CableCARD.

your htpc will wake itself up. WMC controls wake up using scheduler. My HTPC wakes up about 2 minutes before show starts in order to get around 1 minute wake on ceton card. I also enabled 2 minutes extra wakeup in the ceton settings so now my computer wakes up 2 minutes before 2 minutes before show starts . As long as your clock is correctly set on htpc and S3 works you should be ok.